My open heart surgery was originally scheduled for 7:30 a.m., November 9—the morning after the election—but a couple of weeks before, I managed to switch it to a day later. Why take the chance that someone vital in the operating room had been up all night watching the returns—or, as it turned out, would be in the midst of a psychic meltdown over the results?

I, of course, had my own concerns on that score. Knowing that the frenzied celebrations following Hillary’s expected smashing of “the highest, hardest glass ceiling” might compromise my immune system—and, indeed, sap my very will to live—I went to bed election night without watching the returns, planning to go under the knife having in the interim avoided exposure to any news source or individual that might deliver the anticipated gruesome news.